Afterwards, Manziel explained the now-famous text he sent to Loggains urging the Browns to 'hurry up and draft me because I want to be there. I want to wreck this league together.'

The phrase has been trending on twitter ever since, and a local t-shirt shop immediately began printing garb emblazoned with the slogan.

The text went national and viral, because Loggains told ESPN Arkansas that it got Browns owner Jimmy Haslam fired up to draft Manziel.

"When I got that text, I forwarded it to the owner and to the head coach (Mike Pettine),'' Loggains said. "I'm like 'this guy wants to be here. He wants to be part of it.' As soon as that happened, Mr. Haslam said, 'pull the trigger. We're trading up to go get this guy.'''

Manziel was asked about his legendary text Saturday and how it all went down.

"I wouldn't call it exactly legendary,'' he said. "I mean, I felt I had a good relationship with coach Loggains and he was probably one of the only people to text me while the draft was going on and he kind of let me know there was some opportunities to try and get me in an earlier slot and obviously we were where we were, around 20 or something. So this was a place that I felt comfortable with and liked coach (Kyle) Shanahan and liked the situation here and so I wanted to come here and if they wanted to take me and were trying to get me earlier, I said, 'let's do it.'

"I don't know what kind of influence that had or what exactly that did, but this was a place I wanted to be and ended up here and for me, whenever it is I get a chance to play, I don't want to come in and be mediocre. So to have success you need to do some good things and that's more what I was talking about than coming and dominating as a rookie, it wasn't that talk at all. It was coming in and trying to win some games if I'm going to be here and if I get the opportunity to play.''

Did 'wreck this league' just pop into his head?

"I don't know if that's exactly word for word,'' said Manziel. "But it was something along those lines.''

Did he know there are t-shirts being printed?

"I'm sure there are,'' he said.

And trending on twitter?

"I've been busy,'' he said.

Did he text any other teams as he slid down to No. 22?

"There was a spot where we thought we might come off,'' said Manziel. "So the 'hurry up' was more 'we've heard another team is going to come up, maybe you guys don't know that.' There really wasn't that much more to the conversation than a couple little threads.''

Loggains said in his radio interview that the Chiefs were poised to take Manziel at No. 23. The Vikings also reportedly reportedly had him No. 1 on their board, and traded up for Teddy Bridgewater after Manziel was gone.

Coach Mike Pettine confirmed that the text message was more than war-room legend.

"The text message absolutely did happen because in the draft room, when I got it, I questioned Dowell as to whether he made the text up himself in order to get us to turn the card in,'' Pettine joked. "There were three players – I'm not going to go into the names but Johnny was one of them -- that we targeted after we picked that were potential high-value guys for us.

"As the round continued to progress, one of the guys went that was getting close to the Eagles' pick, when we knew that there was a pretty good chance that we were going to be able to jump up and take that spot. Then the other player went, and we knew that quarterback was a position that we were targeting and that Johnny was our top quarterback on the board. There was some excitement in the room building because we felt that we were close to getting him. When Dowell sent me the text that he wanted to come to Cleveland, I think that it just really added to the excitement in the room and were fired up to turn the card in."

Pettine said he didn't really have to talk to Loggains about how his quotes came out, even though they inadvertently made it seem like Haslam made the pick when it was actually general manager Ray Farmer who made the call.

"He knew how it came off, and he wasn't in the draft room when [we drafted Manziel],'' said Pettine. "I think we were all excited because there was a situation that he was our top-rated guy, and we were getting a chance to get him and we knew it was mutual that he wanted to be here, and he and Dowell had developed a relationship over the course of the workouts and the visits. We see that as a positive."

And even if "wreck this league'' isn't exactly how he said it, it's indelibly etched in Johnny Football lore.

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